1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an article of manufacture. More specifically, this invention relates to a device in the form of a complimentary pair of gloves that have been modified to permit one enabled arm of an individual to exercise a disabled arm of the same individual.
2. Background of Invention
Generally, debilitating injuries to muscles, joints and the spine can affect an individual""s limb. Often, moderate to extensive rehabilitative care is needed to regain full use of the affected limb. Even if such rehabilitative care is available, the limited amount of time a therapist can devoted to an individual within a given therapy session is limited by both the resources available and the medical expense incidental to such care. One of the more problematic injuries sustained, and the rehabilitative care required for recuperation of full range of motion, is injury to one""s shoulder.
Shoulders are the most movable, and one of the most fragile, joints in the human body. A shoulder has a range of motion that no other joint in the body comes even close to matching. It is the shoulders"" flexibility that enables the arms to be useful in a variety of activities. Although the shoulder is an excellent positioner for the arm, it is not a good anchor. The shoulder""s flexibility makes it prone to sudden injury and chronic wear and tear. Often someone with pain in the arm, hand, or neck may have trouble moving the shoulder. Likewise, shoulder pain can affect arm and hand movement. It is natural to react to shoulder pain by not moving the shoulder, which can result in almost total loss of the ability to move the shoulder at all. Fortunately, a doctor, sometimes with the aid of a physical therapist or occupational therapist, can almost always treat shoulder problems successfully, particularly if the patient follows a recommended exercise program designed to keep the shoulder in motion.
The shoulder is also very vulnerable to dysfunction following neurologic disease or trauma, such as a cerebral vascular accident (stroke) or traumatic brain injury. Following a stroke or head injury, patients frequently experience paralysis on one side of their body, referred to as hemiplegia. Prior to injury, the shoulder is one joint in our body which compromises stability for mobility. Following a stroke or head injury, the already unstable joint loses the muscular stability that maintains the joint integrity. As a result, the head of the humerus drops out of the glenoid fossa, resulting in what is known as a subluxed shoulder or subluxation. Furthermore, due to cortical damage, patients are frequently left with sensory impairments or substantial pain in this region.
Occupational therapists or physical therapists are the rehabilitation professionals to whom patients are referred by their physicians to treat these motor and sensory deficits. Treatment typically consists of specific neurodevelopmental techniques to facilitate normalized muscle tone, increase range of motion, decrease pain, and improve coordination and eventually strength. Before normal movement can be attained, the motor and sensory dysfunction, as well as the pain at the shoulder joint, must be treated. Typical treatment includes techniques such as weight bearing, joint approximation and proprioceptive input through the joint to increase muscular tone in order to decrease the joint separation (subluxation) and pain. Compensatory aids, such as static arm slings are sometimes used to help with positioning of the arm as rehabilitation progresses. However, these slings have not typically been therapeutic and are fraught with controversy as they place the arm in a bent and nonfunctional position. Furthermore, they typically facilitate spasticity, which is contraindicated for the hemiplegic arm.
While occupational and physical therapies are effective ways to treat symptoms of diseases, injuries, and disabilities of various types, they typically require an extremely long period of time before the patient reaches full or significant partial recovery. In part, this may be due to the short period of time spent in therapy, which typically may only be one hour a day. In most cases, it is only during this time period of occupational or physical therapy that the patient is properly exercising the necessary muscles in order to recuperate from the disease, injury or disability so that the patient can regain use of the affected limb or extremity. Therefore, it would be desirable in the present invention to increase the amount of time that a patient spends in therapeutic movements of the affected limb. In addition, it is desirable in the present invention to provide a patient with the ability to continue therapeutic movements throughout the day, even after leaving the supervision of the physical therapist, and more particularly, to have such therapeutic movements occur in response to normal every day activities or movements of a non-affected extremity.
The limited benefits available from abbreviated periods of physical therapy have not gone unappreciated and a number of devices have been proposed wherein the disabled individual is permitted to assist himself in his rehabilitation.
The following patents are representatives of such self-help rehabilitative devices:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,203,763 (to Lajiness-O""Neill, issued Apr. 20, 1993) discloses a dynamic sling or harness comprising an orthotic device which promotes glenohumeral joint integrity, normalization of muscular tone, and movement for patients with hemiparesis and hemiplegia following central nervous system dysfunction. Movement of the affected extremity is accomplished by active or passive shoulder flexion and/or horizontal adduction of the non-affected extremity from approximately 5 degrees to 90 degrees. Specifically, a cuff is worn on the non-affected extremity which attaches via webbing to a cable. Movement of the non-affected extremity activates a small and effective pull of approximately xc2xcxe2x80x3 to xc2xdxe2x80x3 of the cable, which courses over a shoulder pad and through a cable guide attached to the shoulder pad by hook and loop material means, such as VELCRO. The cable eventually terminates onto a buckle which is attached by webbing to a neoprene cuff on the affected extremity. The Lajiness-O""Neill dynamic sling provides therapeutic benefit and aids patients with improved joint positioning through its dynamic and continuous mechanisms. The Lajiness-O""Neill device also enables the patient to provide continuous and intermittent joint approximation and proprioceptive sensory input to the hemiparetic or hemiplegic shoulder while wearing the dynamic sling.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,952 (to Ortiz, issued Sep. 7, 1993) discloses a therapeutic range-of-motion exercise device having a flat rectangular surface board with intersecting grooves routed into the top surface in patterns of, for example, a half circle, a straight line, and a straight line at a 45-degree angle. These patterns may vary from model to model in order to provide the user with progressively difficult patterns to increase rehabilitation benefits. The user places his hand into the hand guide, a flat hand-shaped device with a depression routed into the top surface for comfort, and a double set of hook and loop straps (VELCRO) to secure the hand to the guide. A capped bolt protruding from the bottom of the guide slides into the grooves in the top surface of the board and the user pushes the handguide along these grooves, enabling him to stretch and rotate the arm and shoulder in a full range of motion. The range-of-motion board will accommodate the right or left arm of the patient.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,710 (to Williams, issued Jun. 23, 1998) discloses an exercise and rehabilitation device consisting of a weighted pair of gloves, each glove having a permanently affixed weighted section on the back-hand side of the glove and paired contoured weights which encircle the end of each individual finger and thumb sleeve. The digit sleeves are open ended to expose the individuals fingertips. A hook-and-pile attachment strip on the palm of the glove is operatively associated with a hook-and-pile covered cylindrical weight which can be detachably grasped by the wearer. A weighted wrist support strap detachably secures the glove to the individual""s hand.
As is evident from the self-help therapy devices discussed above, each involves the user effecting movement of an impaired limb through some motion or movement of the unimpaired appendage. Such self-help movement is intended to improve range of motion or to restore/preserve muscle tone in the impaired appendage and joint. Notwithstanding such efforts, each of the prior art devices is relatively cumbersome, and/or requires multiple accessories and/or substantial dedicated space to house such accessories. Accordingly, there continues to exist a need for a simple yet effective self-help rehabilitation device that provides an individual having partial or localized impairment with the means to effectively improve range of motion of a joint and/or cause flexure of muscles without the assistance of another, and in an environment without additional accessories/supporting contrivance.
It is the object of this invention to remedy that above as well as related deficiencies in the prior art.
More specifically, it is the principal object of this invention to provide a pair of complimentary gloves wherein each member of such pair is capable of releasable coupling to the other.
It is but another object of the present invention to provide a complimentary pair of gloves wherein the gloves are in form of wraps having no digital members.
It is another object of this invention to provide a pair of complimentary gloves that can be releasably coupled to one another at more than one position.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a pair of complimentary gloves wherein each member of the complimentary pair includes indicia associated with each glove to assist in their cooperative use.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a pair of complimentary gloves in the form of a wrap, if a fingered or non fingered conventionally shaped mitten-style glove is too difficult for an intended user to wear, wherein each member of the wrap can be releasably coupled to one another, and at more than one position.
The above and related objects are achieved by a pair complimentary gloves that can be used in the self-help rehabilitation of a joint (e.g., shoulder) or an effected limb (e.g., arm). Each member of the pair of gloves includes indicia and a set of instructions in which the individual is guided as to how to use the gloves, and as to certain exercise routines for rehabilitative extension and/or exercise of an affected joint or muscle. In one of the preferred embodiments of this invention, each glove is configured to permit the ends of the fingers to extend from the palm; and, a complimentary xe2x80x9chook and loopxe2x80x9d array affixed to each member of the glove pair, on each of the palm side and backhand side of each glove, respectively. More specifically, each pair of gloves includes a xe2x80x9chookxe2x80x9d array on one member of each pair, and a xe2x80x9cloopxe2x80x9d array the other member of such pair. In the preferred embodiments of this invention, each of the palm and backhand surface of a single glove are treated the same, that is a single glove has either a xe2x80x9cloopxe2x80x9d or a xe2x80x9chookxe2x80x9d array on its palm and backhand. This diversity of treatment in each array permits a glove on one hand to couple with either the palm or backhand surface of the complimentary glove on the opposite hand. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, the pair of complimentary gloves is in the form of a generally elliptical-shaped wrap, if a fingered or non fingered conventionally shaped mitten-style glove is too difficult for an intended user to wear. A thumb hole is provided as a means for securing the wrap about the hand on one""s thumb. Each wrap is secured about the hand with xe2x80x9cloopxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9chookxe2x80x9d arrays on the palm and backside. Visual indicium is optionally added to facilitate use depending upon the strength of the wearer.